I had a bad time with the budgies last year; dead-in-shell, babies dying before and after leaving the nest, most of the survivors had french moult. I rang over 100, but have only about 30 - and I've not sold any. Continuing to breed to try and get numbers up was probably a poor idea, I should have paused for a month and considered what might have been causing such problems.

I did stop in November and restarted in mid-February. It's the 22nd of March now and I put a ring on the first youngster this year, there's been no dead-in-shell or babies dying, though it's early yet. Fertility is OK, I'm going to average 2-3 birds per cage for the twelve cages I initially set up in February.

What have I've changed? The seed mixture, I've gone back to my original supplier - I don't think there's anything wrong with the original supplier which is a well-known company, but the distributor may not have been the best and not looked after the seed well. I've also returned to Birdcare Co. products, I did use them my first time around with exhibition birds but didn't this time. I'm using their Feast softfood together BioPlus and Proboost SuperMax, but I'm hearing good things about their EasyBird which I think is the same as these additives, but easier to use.

I was a bit too quick in my last blog to say the problems with chicks dying, instead of dying at about 10-14 days they were now dying at about 4 weeks. However, this has all stopped, the majority of chicks are surviving but french moult is causing a problem. Some pairs' chicks seem to be much more susceptible than others. It's rather late, I should have packed up breeding much earlier.

Things to learn from this: Perseverance with breeding is not a good idea, the disease just has fresh blood to... Continue reading...

Things are picking up, but the birds have not been doing well in the nestbox. Lots of eggs, quite a lot of fertility, but many are dying a few days later and within a few days these eggs look like they were never fertile. Of the rest, most are hatching but there are some dead in shell, of the few that hatch more than normal are dying in the next couple of weeks.

Twelve youngsters bred and most are pet quality, there's only one that looks any good, a Spangle Grey Green cock. I took him to the ... Continue reading...

I've just come back from the B.S. Show in Doncaster, the Best in Show is Les Martin's Grey Green cock (I think its the Best YB in Show from last year). On a more personal note my Pied is the winner of the Dominant Pied YB CC. Wayheyyyy!

I was up stairs watching Brian Sweeting's seminar, part of which included some pics of his Dominant Pieds bred this year. This was the point where I thought my pied had no chance as these birds were in the middle of some that he said he brought to the show. Ne... Continue reading...

Another show with young bird C.C.s, so I was hopeful for another for the Pied. However, he was particularly skittish today spending a fraction of a second on a perch everytime he was persuaded by the judge (Ray Steele) to get up. So he was in second place, but just when it was important he stood for about 30 seconds and Ray got a good look at him, and he was moved to first place. So that was his third C.C.

He feels a bit thin in the hand at the moment, so I won't show him again except at the B... Continue reading...

I had a good day, I stewarded for L Stanley and one of the colours he did was the Dominant Pieds, it was a Gold show so there were CCs for any age and young birds. I was happy when he put my young Dominant Pied into first place and left it there! Later after judging our colours and waiting for the other judges to finish, he said that he hadn't seen any birds that stood out except for a young Dominant Pied! Our big colour had been the Grey Greens so if my Pied stood out I was very happy, since... Continue reading...

Well I've finally got started on last major work planned for my birdroom which is 12 breeding cages with a cupboard beneath. The cupboard is nearly complete and since it is the most complex part of the build it should not be to long before the cages are finished.

I've shown at three Open shows so far; Melton Mowbrary B.S., North West Leicestershire B.S. and Leicestershire B.S. In the first two I got Beginner YB 1st, 2nd and 3rd. At Leicestershire, I fared poorly incomparison getting Beginner AA 2nd and YB 3rd, but I did get a 3rd place in the Cinnamon line up.

Entries seem to be way down, the Leicestershire show was almost exactly 200 entries less than last year (368 vs. 565 last year). Is the weather playing havoc with the condition of the birds?

Some weeks ago he dropped both flights, I checked and saw a tail growing but nothing was showing a few weeks later. Both tails were stumpy, they easily came out and they were deformed. I sprayed with a dry iodine anticeptic spray, but I doubt he'll grow a proper tail again.

I've bought three birds this year, all from birdrooms which use half-height flights for their main flights. All three have broken their necks in my full-height flight, the first two at the start of the summer and the last today. I thought the last one was safe, he rarely got off the floor and I never saw him higher than the lowest perch.

I've not had any other bird break their neck, but they've either been bred by me or came from birdrooms with full-height flights. So be warned if you have ful... Continue reading...